Month: February 2014

taped 2014-01-24 @ Arena MéxicoMáximo, Stuka Jr., Titán vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Misterioso Jr., Rey Escorpión: Máximo/Rey Escorpion build up, which seemed to exist just to remind you they might get around to it someday. Now day. I don’t know if I had no patience or if this was too slow, but it really dragged the first couple falls and the comeback felt super casual. Everyone ended up doing what they usually do but I was forgetting this match as it was happening. Rudos just stood around to let the técnicos do things to them, it was nice of them. Third fall was more interesting. Titan’s offense is much more slap based when wrestling Misterioso and more deadly DDT on the apron with Escorpion, funny how that works.

apron DDT

La Sombra, Rush, Shocker vs Averno, Mephisto, Negro Casas: Good bit to get over the Shocker turn; there was no mistaking or dragging it out, he was after Rush from the moment they got to the ring (and Rush was still hurt from Shocker forcing the bar on to his chest!) Negro Casas was the happiest man in the world to see Shocker and Rush fighting each other. Sombra, Averno and Mephisto occasionally tried to have a match here, but this was really short and just about the turn.

Brillo Dorado

Máscara Dorada, Mistico, Volador Jr. vs Niebla Roja, Reaper, Último Guerrero: Good main event, though not a lot to it. A moment for the tencicos to show off while the rudos still get the win. Mascara Dorada makes tricky aeral moves look amazingly easy in this match. While CMLL is creating vignettes, I hope they do one about why all the técnicos suddenly love Volador Jr. – Dorada going with the half mask here was kind of good.

Like this:

Today’s Arena Mexico is a little bit of a lame duck show. The incredible pairs tournament takes over the Friday card the next two weeks, then Dos Leyendas follows on the 03/21. We know half the matches for Homenaje a Dos Leyendas and we’re not expected a lot from the rest of the card, but the one thing we could get from tonight is another title match for that show. The main event has the Estetas del Aire versus the best three of the Guerreros Laguneros. The Guerreros got a win two weeks ago, so another win could set up a title match next month. Or the tecnicos could just win and this could be not a concern.

Rush and Shocker continue to feud in the semimain. They probably shouldn’t be in the tag tournament, so this may be a few weeks of them going directly at each other in trios until the hair match. Stuka Jr. versus Vangellys is the best bet for a good match; the undercard has some good tecnico sides and some incomplete rudo sides.

CMLL posted their video promo for tonight. It remains weird to me that they do these the exact same way they did them on Televisa when they could do anything they want for them (or for all of the shows if they wanted to.)

Chessman went out of his way to taunt Blue Demon Jr. at the press conference for Irapuato TV taping on Monday. I’m convinced Demon’the mystery guy in that trios. Dinastia brought up he won the title in Irapuato about a year ago (and amazingly, they didn’t go a year between title defenses.)

WNC held their own press conference to talk about CMLL’s press conference! It’ll just be the CMLL-REINA International Championship on the line when Syuri comes to Mexico, not the other REINA title or the WNC title (which does seem to make a title change more likely.) Syuri said she was excited to come to wrestling in Arena Mexico. They have the dates as the #1 contender cibernetico taking place on 04/15 and the title match on 04/21 (and Syuri being in for two weeks), which is slightly different than what CMLL said yesterday. It’s all close enough. Those are both Tuesdays. Amapola seems the most likely to get the title shot.

IWRG-AYM Sports: maybe Wednesday’s show, maybe last Sunday’s show, maybe this Sunday’s show? It was last Sunday last week, who’s to say this week. The show has been pre-empted by random programming during the week so far.

Noches de Coliseo: maybe the AAA show

DTU: matches from the 11/23 DF show? The IWRG vs DTU tag and the four way tag were announced.

Like this:

taped 2014-01-21 @ Arena Coliseo GuadalajaraFuego, Gallo, Magnus vs Arkángel de la Muerte, Bárbaro Cavernario, Nosferatu: They’ve turned the lights way down in Guadalajara as well, which often makes it look like the arena is much more empty. First fall went verylong and didn’t leave much for the other two; Gallo didn’t get a lot in outside of the surprise second fall win and being fouled in the third. The match was built around Arkangel and Gallo feuding, so hopefully that means someone’s thought to air their match next week.

Polvora somehow found an empty seat!

taped 2014-01-26 @ Arena ColiseoMáscara Dorada, Mistico, Valiente vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora, Rey Escorpión: GREAT. Championship level match between these two teams, where the titles just happened to not be on the line. Everyone was on, everything went right, and the tecnicos looked spectacular. Crowd was far more receptive to the técnicos (even if they were chanting meaning things at Místico at first), and CMLL would generally feel like they were a much stronger promotion if they ran more DF events in Arena Coliseo. (Or a more full Arena Mexico.) It’s going to take some time to get to used to Kickboxer Dragon Rojo.

triple dive

Atlantis, Delta, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Negro Casas, Puma, Tiger: GREAT and a high level great one. It’s conceivable they could do this match better and they’re obviously getting more tries at it, but this was as great a way to start a feud together. Crowd was totally into it, desperately wanting to see Atlantis versus Negro and well into Puma & Tiger vs Delta & Guerrero Maya. Either of those matches (or other matches) would seem like a big deal later on. The crowd wants to cheer Negro Casas, but he and his nephews were just despicable enough to get the fans to actually turn on him. That’s a major achievement in 2014. Everything looked sharp and felt serious. Atlantis is limited in what he can do, but he does righteous anger really well.

I was very confused when I saw Black Terry Jr.’s photos on flickr this morning – I’m still not used to Wednesday IWRG at all.

CMLL Press Conference

Rush and Shocker will face off on March 21st in a hair versus hair match as the main event of Dos Leyendas. Negro Casas, currently in a sling, will sit this one out and face the winner at a later date. All three signed contracts and surprisingly did not come to blows (though it was a close call.) Rush was more respectful than usual, but still set Shocker off. Rush versus Shocker is a battle between guys who’ve never lost their hair; everyone would’ve expected Casas to lose if he was in a three way match, so this should be a bigger draw. The idea is Negro is hurt and unable to be in the match, but they’ve also said he’ll be back before then.

Marcela and Dalys were also announced for a title match on Dos Leyendas, but both ended up demanding a hair match and getting that instead. Lucky they had contracts ready!

It will also be have the final of Parajes Incriedble tournament. That will kick off next week, with blocks on 03/07 and 03/14. Teams announced: La Sombra & Ultimo Guerrero, Terrible & Marco Corleone, Maximo & Rey Escorpion, Mr. Niebla & Atlantis. Titan and Mascara Dorada were up there to have their partners announced as well, but whoever their rudo partners aren’t weren’t there and weren’t announced. That part was strange.

A Copa Bobby Bonales will take place on 03/14 (Friday). It sounded like Negro Casas, Atlantis and Blue Panther would be involved. They ran one of these before, and it was simply a trios match (that ended in DQ.) Now I remember, thanks to the CMLL Gaceta recap – this is less a match or tournament, and more an award that’s handed out.

A Gen 14 vs Gen 13 cibernetico will take place on 03/25 (Tuesday). Metalico is on the Gen13 team (taking Genesis’ spot, I guess – it’s not officially Gen13, but all the other guys are from that class.) It’s a 16 man field, and the final 8 will advance to En Busca de un Idolo. That starts on 04/04 (Friday)

Syuri is headed to CMLL in April. They’ll hold a cibernetico at some point, and the winner will get a match on 04/14 against Syuri for her triple crown of championships

Mascara Dorada is headed to Taiwan for NJPW. Those shows are 04/12 & 04/13. He’s the only Mexican on the tour. He’s probably on the NJPW tour soon after, but that was not said.

There will be a music performance before the 04/27 show (Sunday, probably Arena Mexico)

If Hechicero makes the En Busca de un Idolo field, the Hechicero is going to win all fan voting. CMLL should carefully decide how they want to proceed with that (or not, and the best guy can just win.) It would also be nice if the final episode of Season 2 aired somewhere, anywhere, and the TV situation was handled better this year.

Other News

Konnan was on Figure Four Daily (subscribers only). He didn’t drop a lot of info, but there was some interesting stuff. On the US front, he said “there are a lot of little changes going on” with the El Rey/AAA and he’ll know more in a couple of weeks.

In an aside about iPPV – they’re still hoping to get Rey de Reyes on the internet but the deal isn’t done – Konnan mentioned the second iPPV would be Verano de Escandlo in June. That’s the first AAA’s said anything about a show in June, but it fits perfectly with Marisela Pena’s comment about AAA running five major events this year. It also breaks up the long gap between Rey de Reyes in March and TripleMania not until August. Essentially, AAA’s flipping the months of TripleMania and Verano de Escandalo for whatever reason.

Konnan also confirmed Maximo is NOT coming to AAA. “We’ve talked to him a couple times, [he says] ‘I want to jump, I want to jump’ and then he never does.” Konnan theorized people end up staying with CMLL because NJPW must pay well for the guys who go, money from sponsorships (the 3M shirt Sombra wears), and there already being so much talent in AAA that they’re afraid of being lost.

Konnan would not confirm or deny Sin Cara is under the mask, but mentions ‘he heard’ Sin Cara is under a non-compete until May so AAA definitely couldn’t use him before then. Konnan also said “The original surprise that was supposed to be in Juan de la Barrera will be in Rey de Reyes.”

I don’t know what to make of that. Sin Cara is obviously the surprise, was the guy under the mask, and makes sense to be revealed at Rey de Reyes, but the non-compete is news to me and seems to prevent him from actually appearing as Sin Cara. The only work around I can figure is convincing him not to be Sin Cara. If Sin Cara wrestles as another name, it’d be harder for WWE prove he’s violating his non-compete.

In this week’s SuperLuchas, Mesias says he’s going to see the doctor in two weeks and will only find out then if he’ll need to get surgery. (The interview was from Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera, so it may be one week by now.) Mesias will not know when he’ll be able to return until that doctor’s visit.

There’s also interviews with Super Fly and Aerostar. Aerostar pushes for the mask match. Super Fly points out he was an original Fuerza Aerea member and Aerostar is not, so Aerostar shouldn’t get to be leader. This is true, but I think you give up leadership when you turn on the group. The La Lucha Se Hace column says there was a tryout before AAA’s show in Ecatepec, including new faces and people from CMLL. An interview with Blue Demon Jr. says he’ll defend the Latin American title at Rey de Reyes but since Chessman spends so much time with tables, chairs and ladder, maybe Chessman should became a carpenter instead of a luchador. Demon hints at a big surprise, which sounds like his involvement in the AAA US/el Rey project.

The DTU poster is stylish but hard to read in the form it’s presented; I can’t read most of the stipulations on there. Stipulations probably don’t matter a lot in DTU. Fourth match seems to be honoring Cerbero Negro and may be for a title shot.

Like this:

taped 2014-01-25 @ Estadio de Beisbol, Guerrero Negro, Baja California SurFaby Apache, Jennifer Blake, La Jarochita vs Mary Apache, Sexy Star, Taya Valkyrie: OK womens’ match. Good effort and they were trying a lot of stuff they had not tried before with most of it going okay, but just looking very robotic or not smooth at time. The Canadians were especially ambitious and sometime it looked like they were thinking thru the moves instead of just doing them. You could do a lot worse, and they’ll be better if they keep trying this for a while.

Monster Clown is Ultimo Guerrero!

Monsther Clown, Murder Clown, Psycho Clown vs Máscara Año 2000 Jr., Psicosis, Texano Jr.: Another Psycho/Consejo match, with Psicosis as a special guest star. I have nothing useful to say about this match but neither did they, since there wasn’t any real story to it until Psycho made his heavyweight challenge after it. (They’ve gone from having a bad story to no particular story for this feud, which might be an improvement.) It was basically the house show match except for the part where Monster Clown became Ultimo Guerrero and Psicosis nearly found a new way to go head first into the mat.

running moonsault dropkick

El Mesías vs Fénix, Zorro, Silver King in a AAA’s Rey de Reyes Tournament semifinal match: One of AAA’s big advantages over CMLL is it rarely looks dated. Zorro got a hair cut sometime since his last appearance and every picture of him is of that new look. Over in CMLL, Euforia is still coming out to an entrance video that’s from when he was in the Infernales, two groups ago. Anyway, AAA’s back to another round of elimination matches where people stupidly break up pins which would definitely help them, joy. This match also demonstrated the power in numbers of the Nuevo Sociedad by having their two members constantly accidentally hitting each other. This match was also the second time they’ve teased a fun looking Mesías/Fenix singles match which is obviously never going to happen. Fenix did the Mr. Niebla comedy spot of slipping and crotching himself on the top rope, except it was so definitely not supposed to be a comedy spot. His one pinfall looked good. The Zorro & Mesías segment was longer than the other two guys were in, slow paced, and ended awkwardly when Mesías hurt his arm on the missed splash. (He was too hurt too lay on his back and get pinned, from the looks of it.) Crowd was into to it – this outdoor crowd was sounded much louder than the outdoor Hard Rock show – but the match leading up to the injury wasn’t too exciting to me and the injury is a sad way to end it.

Ozz Driver

Cibernético, Jack Evans, La Parka vs Dark Cuervo, Dark Ozz, Dark Scoria: Usual main event match until the rudos somehow managed a second beatdown and then just won clean at the end of it. No foul, not evil referee, no distraction, just beat the guy. I think La Secta must’ve been thrown off by actually winning, because they still did the traditional stomping of Jack for winning a match he didn’t even win. Match was alright, best in Jack’s first run off offense after the beatdown where everything looked good. It slowed right down after that for Parka’s comedy and never really got rolling at high speed again but it was about what I’d expect. This did seem short; all the matches did, but it didn’t feel like the Teleivsa version was heavily edited and I’d see longer stuff on UTDN. (Maybe that’s wrong?) It was just a quick show.

Not at all interested in La Mascara singles programs. Averno and Triton worked a lot together in the main event. CMLL keeps coming back to the Atlantis/Niebla feud from time to time. I’m surprised there aren’t more facial injuries with the fierceness of kicks in CMLL the last few months.

Maximo is on the card, the same day as the AAA taping in Irapuato. I’m more doubtful of Maximo changing promotions today, though. This week’s AAA TV included promos from Chessman and Blue Demon building up their Rey de Reyes match, that mystery person Irapuato match includes Chessman. Axel was also introduced back in AAA as Blue Demon’s friend and he’s also in the match. Demon makes plenty of sense as the mystery person.

Lluvia continues to make her way back to Mexico City. Rey Bucanero, Shocker and Ultimo Guerrero is Team Early 2000s. Odd rudo/rudo opener.

Like this:

Sin Cara debuted in AAA – kind of. Friday’s main event included the usual post match brawl, but that was interrupted by a mystery figure posing on the stage for about a half minute before the lights went out and the mystery person disappeared. Mistico’s music played throughout. It was definitely him and he’s under contract to AAA, but his name and mask is a more of an issue. It’s said WWE threatened AAA over use of the name or mask, and so Sin Cara’s head was hidden under a hood for his brief appearance. Sin Cara’s said he’ll have the rights to the name by May but it’s unclear how that would happen, or how AAA could use him until that point.

The rest of AAA’s show was busy as well. Before it even took place, it was announced to be the first of a series of “monthly” AAA events at Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera, though the next date has yet to be announced. Black Warrior, Sin Cara’s old rival, returned to AAA as a member of Perros del Mal and won the last spot in the Rey de Reyes final. A domed cage apuesta match with the Mexican Powers, Fenix and Anarkia was set for Rey de Reyes. A mixed tag title match and Psycho vs Texano in some form also seem likely, though AAA still hasn’t announced much of the card.

Hijo del Santo’s wife has been telling people Santo has been told he can’t continue to wrestle after his scheduled neck surgery, will postpone the surgery to have a couple of matches later this year, then retire. Santo hasn’t officially said anything yet, but is expected to say something this weekend.

Barbaro Cavernario and Mr. Niebla won the 2014 CMLL Gran Alternativa over Soberano Jr & Volador Jr. The tournament seemed to focus more on the veterans than the novatos, and Cavernario (who may have lost his first name) was already headed to a bigger position as part of Peste Negra.

Peste Negra also won the Mexican Trios titles. It was a surprise win, since Niebla seems to be teaming with Cavernario & Herodes going forward, but it’s not as if Titan, La Mascara and Rush were frequent partners. Peste Negra are also challenging for the World Trios titles in Puebla next week. The only down note for Peste Negra was Negro Casas hurting his shoulder last Friday, which will keep him out for a couple weeks.

Rumors continue to suggest CMLL will be on TV Azteca soon. The Super Libre radio show stated the show would debut in March, while talk on Facebook says CMLL will have a 4pm slot on a day to be determined.

Cien Caras was announced as the luchador legend to be honored Dos Leyendas. CMLL will hold a press conference to announce the entire card on Thursday, and this will be streamed to the internet (via Terra) for the first time.

Octagon versus Fuerza Guerrera was announced for the Mexico City WWL show, which Octagon continuing to suggest he’s leaving AAA.

AAA announced TripleMania would take place in Arena Ciudad de Mexico, but not until August (months later than usual.) AAA also announced a deal with a hotel chain, while will help with travel packages for some of their future TV tapings.

Box Y Lucha appears to have gone biweekly, joining SuperLuchas.

Negro Casas, Shocker and Rush continue to feud and are expected to be announced in a three way hair match for Dos Leyendas on Thursday. Dalys & Marcela also continue to weirdly feud, and may eventually get around to have another title match.

Mistico won the CMLL Welterweight Championship from Polovora, his

Puma said he tore his bicep, kept working. Matt Jackson hurt his hand, but didn’t break it and will be making his ChilangaMask show.

El Dandy will have his retirement match on April’s ChilangaMask show in Arena Lopez Mateos.

Masked Republic/Extreme Rising announced a lucha show on 04/27 in ECW Arena with LA Park vs Dr. Wagner Jr. on top.

Dr. Wagner Jr. is part of the cast of reality show La Isla, while his ex-wife had disturbing things to say about him in a scandalous magazine.

The latest Mr. Aguila in no condition match aired. It was amazing, in that it aired.